Apple posts thoughts on Flash

You need to experience the web Apples way, they know what's best for you. (What are they the government?) I guess since they make the product they can somewhat dictate what people can do with it, however I don't think they're going to be able to strong arm the entire web into conforming to the "Apple way of thinking." Especially since NBC-Time Warner already said no to changing their sites from Flash to HTML5. Which probably means no Hulu support either my friends because NBC is co-owner with FOX. I'd say that might be a reason for Apple to conform and not the other way around. (If they're smart.)


(Personally I think they banned flash because all streaming media sites use it. No flash, no competition for Itunes.)

This is a sneak preview of the next update on Apple's site whit a special section for Adobe Flash, The funny side of the history

http://bit.ly/b9AbfC

I heard Adobe has teamed up with Google to make Flash player is going to be integrated in Google Chrome. What if Adobe team up with Opera to bring Opera Mini with Flash player as an App? Or build their own browser rather than a "plug-in" to support Apple devices. Is there a reason that the Flash player has to be a plug-in? (Is it technically impossible?)
As far as the "App" sticks to the Apples rule, Apple should approve it as it did for Opera Mini browser and withdraw these wild accusations.

Interesting squabble.

Apple is notorious for handcuffing it's users (and overcharging in the process).

Adobe - Has always sold bloated software at bloated prices which also take users hostage.

Classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Look we going on some tangents here:). Facts are Apple does not want to support Flash. The reasons are clear and plausable. Also HTML 5 IS OPEN! FLASH IS NOT! You have to pay for a license to MAKE Flash and that puts money in Adobe's little pockets so yes they would love to convince you it's a standard when it's NOT!! Apple is closed in the sense that it's supports open platforms that it feels will give the best user experience for them. Is this about MONEY? OF COURSE IT IS! IT ALWAYS IS! But Apple is not selling a standard. They are trying to sell hardware. Hardware that they believe is the BEST!! And they felt Flash would not provide what they were looking for.
Look my whole family love there iPhones. Many have used other smartphones before and are just so much happier with there iPhones today and if I showed them this post they would say "what the hell are yal talking about and who cares?!!". That's what you geeks don't get. Apple is not there for YOU! There there for the "Mass Market Average User". You know and with all the security issues we have today on desktops and the more people rely on the Internet, we may start seeing more "sandbox" devices like the iPhone and iPad and why? Because most people don't care to hack, break, or screw around with there gadgets. They just want to know that they can press an icon to check there "we rule" farm:)

"Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X."

Can anyone refute this?

Apple posturing about open systems while they construct their walled garden is a bit disingenuous don't you think?

" This is shameful hypocrisy and dishonesty, plain and simple."

ummmm....dont forget the very backbone of their resurgence...iTunes. Still a Carbon app. Why? Because it is easier to make it crossplatform. Exactly why many Adobe products were still Carbon based.

Cocoa is great. I program using it a framework, but it generally "encourages" you to deeply embrace their structure of coding, whereas Carbon was more geared to getting something working with the structure you have. Restructuring programs that are as large as iTunes and Photoshop is not something you want to do more than once a decade.

While I see the logic in some of his points, there are also a couple of real stinkers in the mix:

1. As Steve points out to prove how lazy Adobe is, Adobe only just recently made their apps Cocoa native. What he doesn't tell you is that Apple's own flagship software, Final Cut Suite, still to this day isn't Cocoa native after 10 years and Cocoa being their OWN programming language! Adobe is the first software vendor to port such huge applications over to Cocoa, and in that regard tackled something no one else, including Apple, has been willing or able to do. This is shameful hypocrisy and dishonesty, plain and simple.

2. He spends a lot of time hyping up h.264 as an alternative to Flash for video. I love h.264, but let's be honest here - h.264 wasn't included by default in Windows Media Player until Win7. Until everyone adopts Windows 7 on the PC side 95% of internet users, Mac and PC alike, will be using *surprise!* Apple's Quicktime Player to view h.264 videos online. Apple is simply boosting its own brand under the guise of some altruistic push toward open source. They have always pushed Quicktime as a gateway drug to iTunes, and this move would help cement their place as the dominant provider of content AND playback for both mobile and web.

3. HTML5 is not going to revolutionize video on the web, nor will it be a very large push toward open standards. HTML5 video will still rely on your default media player to render h.264 video, which means video playback on the web will still rely on proprietary, closed systems. We will simply be trading one proprietary video playback engine (Flash) for another (presumably Quicktime), and this is supposed to be some open source dream? Actually, there is one alternative scenario - many browsers are planning to implement "native" media players so you don't need any playback software. Sounds good, but think it through - can Mozilla really build a better media player than the existing solutions created by dedicated teams of video experts who have spent decades perfecting their solutions? Mozilla and the like are browser experts, not video/media player experts. Expect bare bones support and features. I believe that advancements in online video could actually slow to a crawl under HTML5, while offering almost no benefit to consumers.

4. A lot of mac users seem to think that Flash is the reason their fans spin up and battery life drops when viewing online video. Even Jobs raises this issue as a point against Flash. Until a week ago, by Apple decree NO media players for OSX other than *surprise!* Quicktime Player were allowed to access or utilize the h.264 hardware decoding that he refers to. Flash Player has utilized hardware decoding for years on Windows, and as a result Flash performance is better or the same as HTML5 video. How convenient that barely a week before they release yet another public attack against Adobe, they open up support for hardware decoding to third parties. I now suspect that the timing of that move was primarily in preparation for this "open letter," so they can somewhat claim with a straight face that it's Adobe's fault Flash player is less efficient on macs. It's just more distortions and hypocrisy from Apple.


This whole affair really saddens me, because I love their products but I am really starting to hate their silverback alpha male type approach. Their aggressive, public thrashing of companies that Apple fans naturally embrace, such as Google and Adobe, is putting us all in an uncomfortable position. It's like Apple has adopted the George Bush school of management - You're either with them or against them.

I can almost understand a couple of the arguments that Apple is making, but then again by their logic they should also disable video, Wi-Fi, MMS, the iPod, and Apps if they really want to boost battery life. Its a terrible excuse, just like the way iTunes uses heavy compression on any pictures synched to the iPhone because they think we are too stupid to manage the storage space with full size files.

As for performance, I have a PSP, so I know how bad Flash can be on a portable device. But guess what? I can still visit websites and view content that is Flash only. And if the iPhone and iPad are as crazy-awesome-cool as Apple would have you believe, then it shouldn't be a huge problem. I mean seriously, the iPad specs are essentially identical to my iBook G4 except with six years of technological advances behind it. If my iBook can handle Flash fine and the iPad can't, that really says something bad about Apple.

Flash can do a lot more than just video, which Apple almost addresses, but their alternative of only visiting sites with H.264 and using the App Store for games is laughable. I have tried out some of the HTML5 sites, and they seem to work ok, but it is not a replacement for Flash because it can't do any of the things Flash can do. You might as well recommend QuickTime as a replacement for Flash, because at least it can handle certain file formats other than movies.

And then there is their touch argument. I've been baffled by this one since the Great Flash War started. Yes, you are right, Flash wasn't designed with multi-touch in mind, but you know what else wasn't? THE INTERNET. HTML was not designed for multitouch, and there are plenty of things the iPhone can't do because it doesn't have a mouse. For example, I can hold a link to see where it would take me, but I can't hover over it to see what the caption is. So if Apple really wants to get rid of technologies that aren't multi-touch compatible you can say goodbye to almost all web browsing, email, MMS, music, videos, photos, and pretty much everything else except the App Store (but not the Apps that weren't designed for multi-touch).

As for some of the commenters saying that if we don't like Apple's boycott of Flash we shouldn't buy iDevices, that might make sense if Apple were a PC company that only created mediocre products. The iPhone is by far the best smartphone experience, and there isn't anything else to compare the iPad to. I would still like it if they included other options, though. If I don't like the fact that Netflix doesn't have a very good selection of streaming movies I am not going to drop Netflix and start going to Redbox, because their user experience and selection isn't anywhere near as good.

I just can't believe how much people will ignore simply because the Almighty Steve says so.